in the 937th year of
the city, [Footnote: A.D. 184. See Note C.] while Cossonius Marullus and
Papirius Aelian were consuls, when Commodus had already been four years
Emperor.

It was not that misfortune then suddenly overwhelmed me, not that, sharp
as a blown trumpet, I heard the voice of doom blare over me; not that, as
one sees the upper rim of the sun vanish beneath the waves where the
skyline meets the sea, and knows day ended and night begun, not thus that
I recognized the end of my prosperity and the beginning of my disasters.
That moment came later, as I shall record. It was rather that; as, in
certain states of the weather, long before sunset one may be suddenly
aware that afternoon is past and evening approaches; so, though I had no
intimation at the moment, yet, reviewing my memories I realize that at
that instant began the chain of trivial circumstances which led up to my
calamity and enmeshed me in ruin.

And just here I cannot but remark, what I have often meditated over, how
trifling, how apparently insignificant, are the circumstances which
determine the felicity or misery of human beings. I was possessed of an
ample estate; I was, in most difficult conditions, in unruffled amity with
all my neighbors, on both sides of the great feud, except only my
hereditary enemy; I was high in the favor of the Emperor; I was in a fair
way to marry the youngest, the most lovely and the richest widow in Rome.
In the twinkling of an eye I was cast down from the pinnacle of good
fortune into an abyss of adversity. And upon what did my catastrophe
hinge? Upon the whims of a friend and upon one oversight of my secretary.
I should have had no story to tell, I should have been a man continuously
happy, affluent and at ease, early married and passing from one high
office to the next higher in an uninterrupted progress of success, had it
not entered the head of my capricious crony to pay me an unexpected and
unannounced visit, had he not arrived precisely at the time at which he
came, had he not encountered just the persons he met just where he did
meet them, had not his prankishness hatched in him the vagary which led
him to give quizzical replies to their questions; had I not, carried away
by my elation at my prosperity and fine prospects, been a trifle too
indulgent to my tenantry.

Even after, as a result, the nexus of circumstances had been woven about
me and after I found myself embroiled with both my powerful neighbors